Memories of the Past
by Arch Villain
Summary: Some people we think but distant memories, or perhaps products of some fevered dream. What we mistake, however, is that some of those frenzied, broken shards of memory are real. And stepping on those shards can cause what we thought was long buried to resurface.
1. Chapter 1

"Tmp… Tmp… Tmp…"Boots clicked their way across a pristine floor. Aeris' eyes shifted left, then right, keeping pace with her footsteps. Prisoners here resided behind thick, clear plastic walls, most of them sleeping or nibbling at their food. She rounded a corner and furrowed her brow, her sapphire eyes narrowing.

'_Two years… Two Goddamned years and I'm still stuck here, on the newbie floor.' _

"_Floor A-1 is, for lack of a better term, a newbie floor." Her instructor had said. "The only prisoners whom reside there are mental cases. Docile ones, y'know?" He coughed gruffly, and continued. "You'll be residing there for a few months, just to get the hang of things. Security there is loose, so you'll have some room for error. SOME. I don't want reports of my recruits half-assing their duties. Just do your best, trust your training, and you'll be fine." The group of new recruits then saluted, and had been given their wapons._

Currently, Aeris' rifle rested uncomfortably on her shoulder. Sliding the offending strap of material into the crook of her elbow, she glanced at her watch.

"Five… four… three… two… one…" A bass-heavy electronic tone sounded throughout the halls emanating from several loudspeakers. After fifteen seconds the tone subsided, replaced by a blank female voice.

"Round Change, repeat, Round Change. Aeris Cole, please report to the Security Director's office."

Aeris inwardly hurrahed. A trip to the director's office meant a change in rounds, possibly even a promotion. Taking a left at the next corner instead of a right, she found herself walking down a small hallway leading up to a green door. Purshing it open, she blinked her eyes a few times to adjust to the light. The guards' quarters was a small, dimly lit maroon room with a dark green carpet. The slate grey metal lockers were the only things that were new, and the area around them was a little brighter.

She made a bee-line for her locker, and opened it quickly. Throwing her rifle inside and pulling off her grey security cap, she let out a relieved sigh and fluttered her ears above her head, shaking them out. _'Those caps are ungodly…' _Aeris thought to herself. Closing the locker door with a soft click, she started as a pair of arms wrapped themselves around her waist.

"Hello, Love…" A voice droned softly in her ear.

"Leo…" She giggled softly and spun around, pecking the gray cat on the nose. "You know I don't like that."

"Yeah, I know…" He broke his arms grasp around her waist to rub sheepishly at the back of his head. "But I like to do it." He walked back behind her and rested his chin on the top of her head, forcing her to crouch just a bit, chuckling softly as he assumed the rather odd look of a living totem pole.

"So, how's the ninth floor?"

"Eh, s'okay, I guess."

"Oh?"

"Yeah… it's really, really boring. Nothing like when you and me used to do rounds together."

Leo was Aeris' close friend approaching eighteen months. They'd met a short while after becoming employed. They'd met during something called a 'Dual Round', moments when security measures were especially tight required patrols of two guards. They'd immediately hit it off.

This, of course, was the short version.

About eighteen months ago…

A shrill alarm sounded through the halls. "Alert, alert. All floor one guards to Sector Alpha."

Aeris readied her newly acquired rifle, the mechanized weapon settling easily into her hands as she broke into a sprint down the hallway. Other recruits soon followed suit, filing in a short distance behind her. When she'd reached the sector, she heard a large, metallic _'THUNK!' _sound from behind her. A massive security door had slammed down behind her, sealing the other guards from the passage. Four figures stood, somewhat away, in the same room as she. Aeris walked forward with slow, deliberate steps as she aimed down her rifle's sights at the group, until the smallest of the four, a man in a black cloak, raised his hand in a motion for her to stop.

She immediately responded, slinging the rifle back around her shoulder.

"M-Mr. Evilguy." Eyes of acidic green flashed at her from underneath the shroud, but the slight figure turned his back to her and waved her off.

"It's alright, Aeris." His feet hidden beneath his cloak, the man seemed to glide silently back to the other three. The second of them was a huge, hulking male figure clad in uncomfortable looking leather pants, a leather vest of some sort, and a zippered S&M mask. Aeris immediately recognized this person as Major Payne, Johnny's assistant. The other, a grey and white cat clad in the same uniform as she. As for the fourth, he remained hunched over, his back turned to her in his drab white and blue prison uniform.

Aeris walked the long way around to Johnny and the cat, keeping a generous distance from the major.

"So, who's this yahoo?" She pointed a thumb back at the figure in prison drabs.

"I'll let Leo fill you in on this one."

"Well, his name is Prometheus…" at the mention of his name, the figure raised his head. He was a stark white cat with long, flowing white hair to match. Aeris didn't have specifics, but it seemed pretty damned long; waist length, at least. He threw a disturbing red eye her way, and she involuntarily shivered. Leo looked from her to the newly dubbed Prometheus, and gave a good-natured laugh.

"It's a little unnerving, isn't it?" She nodded sheepishly. "It's alright. First time that happened to me, too. I'm Leo, by the way." He stuck out a hand, which she shook firmly.

"I'm Aeris, nice to meet you, Leo."

Johnny very loudly cleared his throat, catching the attention of the newly found acquaintances.

"Now, then. The reason for our gathering here…" Johnny gave a wistful glance at the cat in white, and gestured in his direction. "This man, here."


	2. Chapter 2

First off, I want to begin by saying exactly how sorry I am for not updating sooner. My computer kinda got infected with a deadly virus, and so I had to reset my Laptop to factory.

But, without further adieu, here's chapter two of Memories of the Past.

"Now, then... the reason for our gathering, here... is this man."

"What about him?" Aeris cast a glance that was speculatory, at best, toward the feline in prison drabs. "He looks like any other convict, here. Albeit with a case of albinism."

"That's, ah... that's just the thing." Aeris was beginning to feel unease pool and solidify in her stomach, sitting there like a ball of lead. Nothing, nothing perturbed johnny. The shrouded man was, after all, infamous for dabbling in the dark arts. Monkey's paws, summoning demons... procuring vastly disturbing amounts of human testicles.

"He's not at all normal, and... well, if our reports are correct, he took down outpost Valhalla."

"No..."

Aeris' eyes widened at the mere prospect of what Johnny had proposed. Valhalla was a place that... well, was rumoured to exist, quite honestly. If any reports were to be believed, it was where the Spartan project performed its team-based military testing. The recruits were outfitted with bleeding-edge weaponry, even the M.J.O.L.N.R. suits. Spartan warriors were said to be infallible in their combat prowess.. how this man could have taken them out, single-handed, was beyond Aeris.

'Snkt...snkt...snkt...' Small sounds, produced from seemingly nowhere, broke the female feline from her small trance. Peeking over the shoulder of the volatile prisoner herself and another mundane guard had been sentenced to escort, she discovered that he had possession of a Rubik's Cube. The colors of the puzzle-cube were worn from what seemed to be constant usage, and the convict/living timebomb she was currently peeking over the shoulder of had his attention fixed completely and wholly upon the small brain-teaser.

"Prometheus..." Johnny's voice broke the man's focus away from his toy, and to the shrouded figure that was Johnny. "If you wouldn't mind standing?"

The white cat rose to his feet, which brought him to an impressive height, being a few inches taller than the major, and a full head taller than Aeris herself. The soles of his feet were unguarded by any type of shoe (however useless the prison footwear may have been), and the only other piece of clothing on his form other than his issued drabs was a ribbon of a worn red material, that was obviously very old, but also well taken care of. It bound his hair into the tight ponytail that cascaded down his back, and she oddly found herself wanting to touch it. As her hand outstretched to stroke the soft-looking material, he was stopped short by none other than the man himself. He smiled as his hand caught her wrist in a mild pinch-grip, lowering it to her side as Johnny spoke.

"Now, then, the reason you two" He pointed a thin finger at Aeris and Leo. "Are here is to escort both this man, the major, and I back to the Alpha-Sector base." A single thought crossed Aeris' mind.

_'I hate escort missions...'_

Aeris and Leo kept a constant vigil, their rifles in their arms and poised to fire from the hip.

"Johnny," Aeris' voice made itself clear, in a small, reserved tone. "If this guy is so dangerous, why are only two people escorting him?"

The man in black simply shrugged, gliding along the ground as was his norm. The major's footsteps, the heavy cludding of boots upon the smooth floor, were short behind, and the soft padding of Prometheus' feet were close in time behind the Major's. Escort missions such as this one weren't typically too bad. A simple walk through a few corridors and some doors if nothing happened.

Of course, as was the luck of the group, something _did _happen.

A resounding '**BOOM!**' sounded through the halls, accompanied by a large amount of dust and a degree of rubble that simply couldn't have been good for the structural integrity. The sound of boots, military grade, stomping through the rubble followed suit. All the while, Leo and Aeris were busy clearing their airways of concrete and drywall conglomerate, and Johnny, the Major, and the prisoner were quite occupied coughing their respective lungs.

The cacophony of 'clicks' that followed were the cause of widening eyes, moreso as the dust cleared. The group's eyes were met with the sight of a regiment of soldiers in garb nearly the same as their escorts, albeit in a palette closer to the red spectrum. Aeris and Leo struggled to ready their weapons in time, but by the time the rifles had been in the ready position, it was too late.

Twenty or thirty laser sights zeroed in on the group, finding nice, cozy homes in their chests.

"Guards of Sector Alpha, we demand you disarm yourself of weapons, and relinquish the prisoner!" The voice was muffled, coming from behind the facemask of a decorated soldier amongst the mass of seemingly copy-pasted assailants. What ensued was something of a standoff. Leo and Aeris both refused to drop their rifles, the opposing group pointed their rifle at them, Prometheus didn't give himself over, and all was silent.

_'Snikt... Snikt...Snikt...' _

The familiar sound of a mind-toy being manipulated greeted the ears of all in the little 'party', produced by none other than the cat in white drabs, oblivious to the imminent gravity of the current situation. As soon as the sounds had started, however... they ended. The crack of a rifle shot rang out through the air, shattering the multicolor cube in Prometheus' hands. The man began to tremble, and then he collapsed, his side making harsh contact with the ground as blood began to pool around him. The offending guard's rifle trembled in his hands as he realized what he'd just done.

The prisoner, so highly prized, had been fell by a single shot.

Distress broke out among the opposing groups. The man whom had fired the shot was being all but strangled by his cohorts, the major let out some barely audible grunts, Leo and Aeris exchanged glances, and Johnny... Johnny just stared ahead, the slightest of grins stretching across his lips.

The pool of blood began receding, slowly, inch by inch, until it was no more. His body rose from its crumpled position on the ground like a marionette on strings, and the soldiers in red gave a strangled cry. "That... that's impossible!" The cat chuckled at the others response, his voice deep and foreboding. Immediately after their comrade's cry, rifles readied themselves, and the barrage of fire began. Aeris clenched her eyes tightly shut, waiting for the abyss of death to greet her.

"..."

"..."

"..?"

Aeris cracked her eye open in a careful effort to observe the world around her. Instead of the death-by-fire she'd been expecting, her eyes caught sight of, well... a wall of red, really. It was transparent, nearly crystalline in it's color. The bullets from the offending party were suspending within this wall, like fruit in gelatin. Holding the wall stable was the white cat's hand, fingers outstretched as if touching an object of solid merit. His stance was relaxed, and his mouth was stretched into an easy smile. His eyes glowed an unnatural shade of red, that seemed to dive into the deepest depths of her soul and claw there, searching for exploits even though he wasn't looking at her. With a snap of his fingers, the wall dissipated, and the bullets flung back toward their respective owners, resulting in quite the lot of blood and a pile of bodies the size of a small car.

The glowing in his eyes stopped, and he turned back and smiled at the four behind him.

"So, Lunch, Anyone?"

There we go. An actually decent sized chapter.

Thank you for reading, sorry for the delay, please leave a review. ^^


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